Wanderer’ (2 vols. 1813–17), and a poem called ‘Bertram.’
From June 1818 Brydges lived entirely abroad till the time of his death, with the sole exception of a visit to England from June 1826 to October 1828. In his ‘Recollections of Foreign Travel’ (2 vols. 1825) he has given an account of his movements and opinions till about November 1824. He lived principally at Geneva, apparently in greater peace of mind, and was still actively engaged in writing. Among his bibliographical works of this period are his ‘Res Literariæ’ (3 vols. Naples, Rome, Geneva, 1821–2), his ‘Polyanthea Librorum Vetustiorum,’ Geneva, 1822, and ‘Cimelia,’ Geneva, 1823. Later on, in 1831, he published the ‘Lake of Geneva,’ a blank verse poem in seven books; the ‘Anglo-Genevan Critical Journal’ for 1831; ‘Lex Terræ’ (1831), and his book entitled ‘The Autobiography, Times, Opinions, and Contemporaries of Sir Egerton Brydges’ (2 vols. 1834). He died at Campagne, Gros Jean, near Geneva, on 8 Sept. 1837.
Brydges was twice married: first to Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. William Dejovas Byrche, of the Black Friars, Canterbury, by whom he had two sons and three daughters; and secondly to Mary, daughter of the Rev. William Robinson, rector of Burfield, Berkshire, by whom he had several sons and daughters. His eldest son, Thomas Barrett Brydges (of Lee Priory), entered the army, and died before his father, who was succeeded in his title by his second son (by his first wife), John William Egerton Brydges, who served in the Peninsular war, and died 15 Feb. 1858, aged 87. He was unmarried, and his half-brother, F. Hanley Head Brydges, became the third baronet (Ann. Reg. 1858, c. 389; Gent. Mag. March 1858, p. 342).
[Brydges's Autobiography, 2 vols. 1834 (each vol. contains a portrait of the author); Collins's Peerage of England (ed. Brydges), vi. 704–40; Beltz's A Review of the Chandos Peerage Case (1834); Gent. Mag. November 1837. For the titles of Brydges's very numerous writings, several of which are necessarily excluded from this article, see Lowndes's Bibliographer's Manual, i. and vi. (Appendix), 218–25, and the Brit. Mus. Cat.]
BRYDON, WILLIAM (1811–1873), a surgeon in the Bengal army, was descended from a Scotch border family, one member of which had distinguished himself as provost of Dumfries during a siege of that town, while another, who farmed his own land, had horsed a troop of cavalry for the Pretender. He was born in London 9 Oct. 1811, and entered the service of the East India Company as an assistant surgeon in October 1835. After serving in India with various regiments, British and native in the course of which service he was sent on escort duty, first with the commander-in-chief, Sir Henry Fane, and a few months afterwards with the governor-general, Lord Auckland, to the court of Ranjit Singh at Lahore, he was despatched in 1839 in medical charge of a regiment of native infantry to Afghanistan.
On the fatal retreat from Cabul, Brydon with five other British officers managed to escape as far as Fattehabad. In the neighbourhood of this place his companions were all slain, and he alone wounded and wellnigh exhausted by hunger and fatigue, reached Jellalabad, then held by a British and native force under the command of Sir Robert Sale. He served in the subsequent defence of Jellalabad during its siege by the army of Akhbar Khan, and returning to Cabul with Sir George Pollock's army of retribution, accompanied it back to India. Fifteen years later the mutiny of the Bengal army found Brydon at Lucknow, where it was his lot again to serve with a beleaguered garrison, and where he was severely wounded in the course of the siege. In a general order issued by Lord Canning on the defence of Lucknow, Brydon was referred to in terms of special laudation. In the following year he was appointed a companion of the Bath, and retired from the Indian service in 1859. The latter years of his life were passed in Scotland, where in 1862 he joined the Highland rifles militia regiment, now called the 3rd battalion Seaforth (Duke of Albany's) Highlanders. He died at Westfield, in the county of Ross, on 20 March 1873, his health having been previously much impaired by the results of the wound received at Lucknow.
[Kaye's History of the War in Afghanistan 3rd edit. 1874, p. 389; Calcutta Gazette, 8 Dec. 1857; family papers.]
BRYDONE, PATRICK (1741?–1818), traveller and author, was born in Berwickshire about 1741. He 'received an excellent education at one of the universities,' and appears to have been for a short time in the army. The study of electricity, to which the discoveries of Dr. Franklin had recently attracted attention, occupied him as a young man, and he travelled through Switzerland, making experiments in connection with this branch of science. In 1767 or 1768, soon after his return from Switzerland, he went abroad again with Mr. Beckford of Somerly and two others as travelling preceptor. In 1770 he made a tour with these gentlemen through Sicily and Malta, the former island being but little
